Posted
by
Soulskill
on Saturday June 18, 2011 @07:23PM
from the napalm-hugs-and-frag-grenade-kisses dept.

sanzibar writes "Not satisfied with the legal conclusion of the DOJ, the Obama administration found other in-house lawyers willing to declare a bomb dropped from a drone is not 'hostile'. The strange conclusion has big implications in determining the President's compliance with the law. If drone strikes are in fact hostile and the Libyan campaign continues past Sunday, he may very well be breaking the law."

Harold Koh is one of the big lawyers supporting the air strikes for the Administration. He condemns Republicans for going to war without authorization when in academia, but was brought into the Administration with President Obama, and since has changed his tune a bit. It should be interesting to see (1) if a Republican president keeps him on whenever one next gets elected and (2) whether he will return to academia and try to walk back his current position.

There are some interesting theories as to whether the air strikes are legal or not. The question isn't whether they are hostile, it's whether they are "hostile" as that word is used in a particular context--probably the war powers resolution, IIRC. But there are some interesting end-runs you could potentially do around that, such as through the UN--maybe Congress approved the UN charter, which validates the security council resolution authorizing the action, for example. That shouldn't work--there are limits that the Supreme Court puts on how far Congress can delegate its powers, and there's no way they can delegate the declaration of war, particularly if they do so ambiguously.

Ultimately, if the House wants to stop it, they can always cut the funding.

On the upside, $10M a day is going mostly to our military industrial complex, which pumps some money into the economy. Also on the upside, getting rid of tyrants.

Still, I get the image of a big freeciv display in the situation room...

They are firing shells, missiles, burning fuel, and consuming resources including time and attention. Once, shells, missiles strike their target, they are gone for good: burned up. The fuel is burned up. The time is burned up. None of these things can then benefit us or anyone else in the future.If we spend money on tools that we need to make more things in the future, then spending the money may help our economy. But only if the amount of money we can draw from those added resources exceeds what we spent.Every time the US declares war (or fails to declare it), its really a war against its own people. Its an excuse to funnel billions of dollars down a rat-hole that has no oversight, and no end in sight. Can you think of another country just before WW1 and WW2 that was addicted to war? Look what happened to them.Our leaders think they can gamble at any stakes and take all the winnings for themselves. And if they lose, they can parachute out to some haven and leave the people with the crushing debt of their mistakes.

They are firing shells, missiles, burning fuel, and consuming resources including time and attention. Once, shells, missiles strike their target, they are gone for good: burned up. The fuel is burned up. The time is burned up. None of these things can then benefit us or anyone else in the future.If we spend money on tools that we need to make more things in the future, then spending the money may help our economy. But only if the amount of money we can draw from those added resources exceeds what we spent.

This is a good argument, but it is not true. Munitions have a shelf-life. When they reach the end of their shelf life they need to be disposed of safely. Doing so is about ten times as expensive outside a war than inside one. For some reason, nobody cares about the environment in a war.

The value of goods produced and held is, as a whole, the wealth of the participants in the economy. Everything has some value to the holder, but it varies over time, often decreasing as things get old, eaten, worn out, etc.

The interesting part is the allocation of resources towards producing that which maximizes the perceived wealth created and held, and when it comes to munitions they tend to be very expensive for the perceived wealth; using those resources for basically any other production would create more value and make the economy wealthier.

The second world war was not essential to getting out of the depression, basically any other production on the same basis would have accomplished the same.

Another misconception is that jobs are intrinsically good for the economy. Make-work jobs are in themselves merely a covert wealth redistribution scheme. As far as the wealth of the economy is concerned, although less palatable, simply taxing the employed and paying the unemployed to sit around doing nothing would be neither more or less valuable (if we assume that munitions have near zero value to the participants in the economy).

Redistribution through building infrastructure or various public works is slightly less wasteful, but ultimately the least inequitable method of managing reduced demand would be to divide the actual work through more general reduced working hours, rather than the binary employed-unemployed tax-makework structure. In the end, as the whole point of an economy is to generate the most wealth for as little work as possible, it would be good to have a method to deal with the end-game in that function, just in case it turns out that demand for goods isn't infinite but balanced against the value of free time.

The security council resolution authorizes the use of force. It would not "override the constitution," it would delegate an enumerated power by implication. I consider it an argument that would fail, but an interesting one. Also, I do not see anything in the Constitution indicating the war making power is given to Congress *exclusively*, although I wouldn't be surprised if notes from the founders reflected that.

Because when Hoover did nothing*, that sure worked out brilliantly. FDR initiates the new deal, economic cratering almost immediately halts and GDP starts going back up. 1936/7, Republicans demand new deal be cut back to balance budget, recession is immediate. Then shortly after we got into WWII, also known as "the biggest big-government deficit-spending jobs & stimulus program in all of history." Then the GI Bill paid to have them all sent off to school again and the next few decades were the zenith of American power and prestige around the world.

So, how's things going in Greece and Iceland?

*He actually did start the ball rolling on some stimulus-esqe stuff, but it was too little too late, and he didn't afaik do anything to stop the bank dominos from falling, which was the immediate short-term problem.

The problem is that a significant percentage of your countrymen get a really good hard on and a orgasm every time they get news that their armed forces are dropping bombs and firing bullets anywhere in the world. Is the best way to win elections and certainly, that Citizens United ruling from your Supreme Court has put the last nail in the coffin of the american democratic republic. On the plus side, you guys can use Jefferson's body to power all the East Coast instead of letting him simply spin in his grave.

No, it doesn't. As per usual it just gives the US permission to continue bombing a country and indiscriminately killing as they please. I guarantee you that if the situation were reversed and a "non-hostile" drone attack was conducted on the Pentagon or the White House, Obama would nuke the countries involved and then beat any survivors left to death with his Nobel Peace Prize.

And you elected him. Not that your votes matter any more, but hey, maybe it's time to start pointing the finger at the asshole that

This is the one thing that is somewhat evangelical, but so what if his position is to remove all power from the federal state? Then he can't say boo about any of those issues, it's up to the states (as it should be).

People get that confused about Palin too, even though she also is against abortion she has said before in an intervie

Yes, he opposes the Civil Rights Act on principle and offers a harsh judgment on its effects. Here is part of his statement in Congress on the Act's 40th Anniversary:

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business's workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge's defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife.

Of course, America has made great strides in race relations over the past forty years. However, this progress is due to changes in public attitudes and private efforts. Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

This is yet another example of him holding his principles to a fault. In my opinion and experience his critique of the act is about half accurate. Certainly the Federal Government overstepped its bounds by forcing integration, and race quotas have historically been a hindrance to racial harmony. But at th

Except the US and NATO don't "indiscriminately" kill as they please, they put a ton of planning into every strike and try to conduct operations is with a minimal amount of civilian death and injuries.

After all, the US and UK have been using inert bombs on radar and light structures for over 12 years, because an explosive would do too much civilian damage.

Those ignorant of military history think all modern bombing and air strikes look like Sir Harris planned them and that because a B-52 can carry 35 tons of bombs, every time a B-52 is mentioned it must have dropped 35 tons of bombs.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing [wikipedia.org]

But the vast majority of airstrikes and bombings by the US and NATO since 1992 have been with smart weapons, guided missiles or single small (500 pound or 1000 pound) bombs

In Iraq/Kuwait in 1991 8.8% of air strikes were with PGMs, in the Kosovo War the number is up to 90%, in 2001 Afghanistan it drops back to 55%

In Libya it looks like about 75-80% PGM, and of course anything from a Predator or Reaper drone is going to be a PGM, either a Hellfire (Laser or Millimeter wave radar) or a small JDAM (GPS and/or laser)

If they kill the wrong people, are you going to hold them accountable? Are you personally going to close the doors on their cells? No? Do you know the individuals who are? No? Then exactly how careful do you think they need to be when they have to account to nobody for anything?'

It wouldn't be the first time that the US government claims the right to do things it holds are illegal for everyone else. We torture, we "cyberattack", we proliferate nuclear weapons and WMDs, we attack other countries and wage wars of choice, we violate other countries' sovereignty, all things which we prosecute and punish others for through international courts and extraditions, or would hold to be acts of war if done to us, even while we do the same to the rest of the world.

And we slaughter innocent civilians from those drones almost on a daily basis, and treat it as if it was nothing. The terrorists killed around 3000 innocents, while we've killed something like 300,000, if not far more. To a far greater extent than al Qaeda, we are the terrorists.

"The "terrorists" (let's be specific, Al Qaeda) have killed way more than 3,000 innocents."

Sure, they've killed many thousands of innocent Middle-eastern Muslims too, and a few hundred other Americans before and since, but it was the 9/11 dead, and only those 3000-ish, that motivated the US to war. But they've killed thousands, and the US has killed hundreds of thousands. It's orders of magnitude more.

"your assertion that "we've killed something like 300,000" is an irresponsibly nonspecific charge."

It's impossible to be more specific because the US has refused to bother counting the war dead beyond its own soldiers, which has left us with independent estimates that partisans then assail for also being partisan. It also doesn't help the US' credibility or good will among their victims' families that they don't bother track the number of dead.

And yes, when it comes to aggressive wars, it is absolutely reasonable to blame the aggressor for all the war dead, even those killed by the enemy, because without the aggressive war none of those people would have died.

"Moreover, it is silly to compare numbers that way when many (most?) of the deaths it seems you are saying we are responsible for are also the responsibility of those terrorists."

Do you have an estimate? I can find none on Google. Every number I've ever heard has been in the thousands, not hundreds of thousands, not even tens of thousands.

But the idea that you could possibly attribute most of the war dead in the US' wars to al Qaeda is utterly ridiculous. al Qaeda numbers in the few hundreds, that's an estimate the US DOD freely admits. While the US has hundreds of thousands of soldiers and spent hundreds of billions of dollars on its wars. The wars are asymmetrical, al Qaeda are few and very ill-equipped. It's just incomprehensible to imagine how they can possibly be responsible for anything even approaching the numbers killed by the US.

The point I'm trying to make is that the US has responded to a terrorist act of death and destruction by indiscriminately raining down death and destruction a hundred or thousand-fold on innocent Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Yemenis, and now - or soon - Libyans. It's far, far more death and destruction than can be attributed to al Qaeda on 9/11, or since, or even "the enemy" if you want to include "militants" or "insurgents" - which are basically people who want us to stop killing them and leave their countries. If the US is justified in that, what are those countries, and their allies, justified in doing to the US?

If they bombed the US with drones would it be okay because it isn't "hostile"?

I expect you're one of those that argue dropping bombs are Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrorist acts over a military one.

Even if you excuse the first bombing, the second has none. You don't save the lives of soldiers by deliberately killing hundreds of thousands of civilians if you wish to keep the moral high ground, and especially not twice in a row without even giving them the opportunity to surrender after the first.

I won't argue the facts that you presented here; there is no doubt in my mind that you are far more acquainted with them than I. I will, however, argue that we are not on any moral high ground, nor are we building many friends around the world with our actions. As a result of 9/11, we have since pretty much invaded four sovereign countries -- one of which (Pakistan, the other three being Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya) is ostensibly our ally (at least for now). We at least had some legitimate claims to Afghanistan, since they were clearly in cahoots with OBL. Iraq was ostensibly about removing an power mad dictator who was allegedly creating weapons of mass destruction. When none were found, we changed out tune to "well, he was in league with the terr'ists, and killing his own people"...much like our justification for invading Libya. But if that were really our motivation, then why aren't we in Syria or Yemen? Why didn't we get involved in Egypt or Tunisia? Why did we send just a token presence into Somalia in the '90s? Why were Libya and Iraq the only countries where we care that the leaders are attacking their own people?

I'm sure it's just pure coincidence that both Libya (#17) and Iraq (#12) are much greater producers of oil [wikipedia.org] than Syria (#32), Yemen (#36), Egypt (#28), or Tunisia (#53).

The administration's argument is that the meaning of "hostilities" under the law is any engagement that puts US troops at risk from enemy action. They say that the law was meant to protect US troops from a capricious executive branch that needlessly subjects them to danger. Since soldiers are not endangered by executing drone strikes, that would make the drone strikes not "hostilities."

If Congress doesn't like it, they can very easily put an end to it by clarifying the law. (At least, they can do that more

(c) For purposes of this joint resolution, the term "introduction of United States Armed Forces" includes the assignment of member of such armed forces to command, coordinate, participate in the movement of, or accompany the regular or irregular military forces of any foreign country or government when such military forces are engaged, or there exists an imminent threat that such forces will become engaged, in hostilities.

The law clearly states that it applies to situations where people from other countries are helped by US military personnel. So the Obama administration's claims that it only applies when US troops are being shot at is obviously bullshit. "It wasn't me, it was my remote-controlled device" is not a valid excuse.

In October 2002, a few days before the U.S. Senate vote on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution, about 75 senators were told in closed session that Saddam Hussein had the means of delivering biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction by UAV drones that could be launched from ships off the Atlantic coast to attack U.S. eastern seaboard cities. Colin Powell suggested in his presentation to the United Nations that they had been transported out of Iraq and could be launched against the U.S.[78] It was later revealed that Iraq's UAV fleet consisted of only a few outdated Czech training drones.[79] At the time, there was a vigorous dispute within the intelligence community as to whether CIA's conclusions about Iraqi UAVs were accurate. The U.S. Air Force agency most familiar with UAVs denied outright that Iraq possessed any offensive UAV capability.[80]

They all made statements with the same stupidity as this. This is about law, not truth. If he can wrangle it that in *legal* terms, it is not hostile, then legally,it is not. Which is all he needs. As far as what it means in english (not legalsleaze), yeah, its as hostile as a punch in the nose. You have to remember for a politicians to get to the top, they normally have to get very good at legal sleaze. If they are not, they are not going to be able to support the people who pave their way with gold.

Well, our having this discussion is a bit like non-geeks discussing computer topics. They use relevant terms, but not necessarily with their correct meaning. "Real-time" is a term whose misuse often makes me cringe.

We can't even understand what this argument is about without at least looking at the legal briefs. Clearly the administration isn't claiming that dropping bombs from a drone is a benign or friendly act; they're making the argument that it does not fall into a class of actions defined by some specific law (in this case the War Powers Act I think), and referred to by the shorthand "hostilities" in the text of the law. If the law in question says something like, "A 'hostile action' for the purposes of this act is one in which (a) (b) or (c)," then what we're talking about is whether the Libyan operation qualifies under those terms, regardless of whether it is "hostile" according to the common definition of the word.

I support the Libyan operation, because it's a rare opportunity to take a state sponsor of terrorism out of the picture at relatively low cost. But I think the operation should be authorized by Congress first. That won't happen because the current congress is all too willing to play with critical national interests for short term electoral advantage. At any other time this would be a no-brainer, but for now it's a non-starter. For that reason I would not be surprised if the Administration is bending the law past the point of breaking in order to get the job done. But it is quite possible that a reasonable argument could be made that an operation in which US personnel aren't placed in harm's way *might* not fall under the definition of "hostilities" laid out in certain laws.

To know whether the position taken is as ridiculous as it sounds, we'd have to see the actual arguments being made, as opposed to some dumbed down, hand-waving media account.

Right, because Obama stopped all of the abuses, and Bush never overthrew dictatorships as part of an international alliance. Oh. Right. Nevermind. That's just that whole selective memory thing again. Silly me.

I wonder what your metric for cruelty is. I mean, Qaddafi is certainly no angel, and shelling civilians in cities is not a good way to do things, but then we've seen rebels beheading, quartering and burning people alive for expressing sympathies for loyalists, or even just for being Black (they seem to be pretty happy videotaping their antics so there's plenty of evidence). It's not clear what the dominating ideology there is, either - Western media has focused on those expressing liberal ideas, but there

I cant really agree with either of you. Killing poor people because they were born in the wrong part of the world is EVIL. Kidnapping, torturing and, in some cases, killing people because they share the same name/alias(in that a guys alias is actually their name)/religion/sold to by tribal rivals is EVIL.

Both acts are disgusting.

To be clear, the Bush torture program found some random low ranking lawyer to sign off, but we haven't seen reports that his attorneys general, office of legal counsel and [major governing agency] disagreed. To equate this asinine legal opinion to Bush we would have to go to the domestic spying program.

This illegal wiretap program had the counsel of the FBI, OLC and the attorneys general saying that its incredibly illegal. You know, the program that Ashcroft refused to sign off on and was visited in a hospital room and refused to sign? The one that Bush modified to get Ashcroft to sign off on, that the NYT sat on until the end of the election, and that even after being modified(so that Ashcroft would signoff on)was still illegal.

Like Bush's unmodified wiretap program, Obama had his OLC, Pentagon Legal Counsel and (as the NYT buries on A6 in the second to last paragraph of a 21 paragraph article) the Attorneys General.

tl;dr Both obscene decisions come at the objection of the Attorneys General;OLC and [major governing agency],

The use of explosives by anyone on this forum would be considered "hostile" and would land them in jail. They can label it whatever they want, but you drop a bomb somewhere, you better expect a "hostile" reply.

It's the natural continuation of the long-existing slippery slope. First they stopped the use of the term "war" (to remind, the US has last officially used the term "war" in 1942 - neither Korea nor Vietnam nor Afghanistan nor Iraq were "wars"). The next logical step is to excise any mention of violence whatsoever. Conveniently, this also removes the need to authorize it.

In the long term, though, I suspect that this moment - and not all the other Obama's blunders - will end up in history as the marking moment of his presidency. Even Bush asked (and received) authorization to use force from the Congress - albeit with a lot of deception and outright lies. Obama pretty much says he doesn't care for one, and it's his way or the highway.

Frankly, waging war in explicit denial of the parliament would be grounds for immediate impeachment in pretty much any other country. How does that normally work in US?

It is a coercive, destructive, military act, 100% consistent with what our Founding Fathers meant when they wrote "war". Therefore I don't give a crap whether somebody re-defines it as "hostile" or "friendly" or a "love tap". It's illegal as hell.

US Presidents do this sort of thing which is why they get to be called "Commander in Chief". Congress didn't vote for Panama, Grenada, the stupid waste of marine's lives in an impotent "show the flag" exercise in Lebanon, or the Navy escort of Iraqi oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. I'm sure there's a few from Clinton's time as well (Somalia etc) - Reagan set the bar low and that's what every President since has followed. There's no real need for LBJ or Bush trickery to attempt to fool the world when it's

"I don't give a crap" is not a logical non-sequitur. Further, the Constitution already gives the power to declare war to Congress, not the President. And further yet, the "War Powers Act" does not trump the Constitution, it merely clarifies Congress' policies regarding the waging of war.

The President's power over our military is generally considered to be limited to the power to repel invasion, without Congress' prior approval. However, this is neither a repulsion of an invasion, or a War declared by Congress. Therefore it is an illegal act, regardless of how "hostile" it is, or not. Nor does the President have any Constitutional authority to re-define the law.

Therefore, the President has committed an illegal act. And there is no non-sequitur in that chain of logic.

"But, if Obama can get the Supreme Court to buy that drone attacks are not hostile (and the Supreme Court holds that the WPR itself is legal), then it is, in fact, legal."

No. This is a fiction that even the Supreme Court encourages (for obvious reasons). The Supreme Court does not have the authority to declare more power for the Federal government than laid out in the Constitution. This was made abundantly clear to the states prior to ratification of the Constitution. In fact it was a condition that some of the states insisted upon before they would ratify.

"Should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union, the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassment created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, very serious impediments; and were the sentiments of several adjoining States happen to be in Union, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter." -- James Madison (Federalist 46)

But more to the point is the following quote, regarding the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, which constituted a guarantee

So, since Bush waged two wars without a declaration of war, nor repelling an invasion, therefore President Bush has committed at least two illegal acts?

No, he hasn't. President Bush obtained authorizations for use of military force from Congress for the war against Al Qaeda (War on Terror), and against Saddam's Iraq. Legally they are equivalent to declarations of war.

The Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress. Nobody else, JUST Congress. Now, we can argue semantics all we want, but "waging war", as meant when the Constitution was written, clearly meant "attack with military force". No weasel words by either Congress or the President can change that. As James Wilson, one of the Founding Fathers, wrote: ""The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it." T

In all seriousness though, he's exploiting a loopholeit seems, because the law was written in 1973, beforedrones existed.

"It should come as no surprise that there would be some disagreements, even within an administration, regarding the application of a statute that is nearly 40 years old to a unique and evolving conflict. Those disagreements are ordinary and healthy," he added.

At some point we're going to get another irrationally warmongering hawk president. Can we get an iron-clad precedent set that in matters that matter the president isn't above the law, and can't just run around making stuff up?

It's too bad that would have to happen with this president and not the previous one, who happened to be Houdini of inventing BS from thin air. Free-speech zones. WMD. Blocking Scientific Papers. Etc. But we can't just agree to ignore the law for presidents we like.

>>It's too bad that would have to happen with this president and not the previous one, who happened to be Houdini of inventing BS from thin air. Free-speech zones. WMD. Blocking Scientific Papers.

The free speech zones really came to pre-eminence at the 1999 WTO talks, not the 2004 Democratic convention. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone) I know that "blaming Clinton" isn't nearly as popular as trying to pin everything on GWB, but it's not good to live in fact-free zone, either.

I voted for Obama because he said he would end the presidential lawlessness, end the wars, end the abuse of "state secrets" to block justice through the courts, close Guantanamo Bay and end the 4th and 5th Amendment violations that it represented, and protect whistleblowers. But since he was elected he has done the exact opposite, attempting to assassinate US citizens simply by declaring them enemies of the state with no process whatsoever, escalating the wars and even claiming the power to start more wars without consulting Congress, increased the abuse of state secrets to even prevent cases from being heard, refused to do anything about Guantanamo Bay and even opened up the greater black hole at Bagram, prosecuting whistleblowers to a far greater extent than any previous president ever did, and trying to prosecute Wikileaks under the Espionage Act. All of this is the exact opposite of what he said he would do when we elected him.

The only power citizens have to punish presidential lawlessness is to refuse to reelect them, and when possible, elect the candidate who says they will undo the lawless behavior. And when the country did that, the guy we elected broke every one of his election promises and proved to be much, much worse. And Congress, as well as both parties, have proven to be enthusiastic supporters of all of this. Senator Russ Feingold, the only one who really cared about the rule of law, lost reelection last year. When both parties support government lawlessness, in Congress and the White House, when we elect those who promise to stop it and they turn around and expand upon that lawlessness instead, what option do we have?

The precedent, I'm afraid, has already been set. Nobody who matters supports the rule of law any more; not Congress, and not the courts, nor the mass media, who are all too deferential to presidential power to want to do anything about it, not the parties who both want that power for themselves when they win the White House, and certainly not the executive who reaps the benefits. That sort of unanimity among the branches of government is what establishes precedent for a very long time, generations if not indefinitely.

To fuck over Obama, same reason they do everything. They demanded that he intervene in Libya specifically so that they could use it against him. If he had refused to intervene, they would have used that against him too. Their one and only goal is to destroy him. They've come out and said so on multiple occasions. People just tend to assume it's a joke, or something.

While this particular episode seems bizarre in isolation, it's just part of a larger battle (no pun intended) that has been happening for a long time now - the battle between the legislative branch and the Executive branch regarding ultimate control over the military. It is up to Congress to declare war - however presidents, as the head of the US armed forces, have the right to deploy troops into hostile situations without declaring war. Congress has voted that these deployments can only last a certain number of days before they must be declared an act of war (or, more accurately, before Congress must approve the continuation of the deployment). No president has been willing to recognize that congressional act as valid.

It doesn't matter whether Congress and the Presidency are of opposite parties or of the same party - in this situation the two branches have consistently disagreed.

This is not surprising in the least. The United States government once went into a fisheries dispute with Canada claiming the scallops were a migratory species of marine life because they could propel themselves using water squirts.

This demonstrates how Obama's presidential behavior is in reality not significantly better than the behavior of Bush. He talked a very different game, but in practice he winds up making the same sort of unethical choices as Bush. Political parties are irrelevant when they both breed and foster this same bad behavior.

That's what liberals consider the Constitution. If they are willing to bend the Constitution on matters such as interstate commerce or or various amendments, you knew it was only a matter of time when they redefined what a war was (ie its only a war when we say its a war).

Oh horseshit. Neocons like John Yoo have long argued that anything a President does with respect to war is constitutional. You cannot just turn around and say that reasoning doesn't apply to Obama.

You can't apply strict constructionalism only when a Democrat is in the White House. It has to apply equally to all Presidents. Like Reagan and his little secret wars.

If you really want strict constructionalism the War Powers Act is clearly unconstitutional because it delegates a power specifically assigned to Congress to the President. I know it's attractive to Congress to dodge any kind of hard issue like deciding to go to war, and then later hoist the President by the short hairs for public effect, but in absence of an Amendment that's the way it is. You can't end run the amendment process by passing a law.

So you can't have it both ways. Either constructionalist and the Congress has to actually declare war, or wink wink nudge nudge and the President can send troops wherever and whenever. No one way when a Republican is in power and the other way when a Democrat is in power.

While Obama should've gone back and gotten authorization from Congress to extend the mission in Libya, he acted properly initially, because otherwise there'd be a lot of blood on our hands (see: Bush Sr. in Iraq) as the resistance capital Benghazi was about to fall had we not intervened.

Of course, as far as I know we never declared war on Pakistan either, but Congress has been happy to sign checks for drones to fire missiles inside Pakistan territory. Is this not also "putting US Armed Forces into hostilities"? And if you want to be technical, Congress has not passed a bill declaring war on anyone since World War II. It's all "authorization to use force", which is more of the kind of Orwellian terminology in use post-WWII, such as changing the Department of War to the Department of Defense.

In my opinion, this is not "hostilities" in the sense of invading a country. We are in Libya at the request of the Libyan people to prevent a humanitarian disaster. Obama may have slipped up on the technicalities, but the technicalities are only being brought up now because of politics. The cause is a just one.

We are in Libya at the request of the Libyan people to prevent a humanitarian disaster.

No, you're in Libya at the request of some of the Libyan people, namely those who support the rebel faction. In case you've missed all the news stories, Qaddafi has considerable support among the general population in western part of the countries - so much so that there were already cases where rebels tried to "liberate" some towns, and were chased out of them by armed locals.

Even for those who aren't outright loyalists, I very much doubt that common folk being bombed in Tripoli right now have consented to

A bomb dropped from a drone is not hostile in the same way as water-boarding is not torture.

I guess it must be a special reality bending field once you are the commander in chief of the military of a nation involved in non-war conflicts against hostile unlawful fighters and on humanitarian missions to protect civilians.

The War Powers Act was passed by both the House of Representatives and Senate but was vetoed by President Richard Nixon. By a two-thirds vote in each house, Congress overrode the veto and enacted the joint resolution into law on November 7, 1973.

It's called the War Powers Resolution for a reason... it was a resolution, of Congress... which does not have the signature of a President... it was not vetoed... or even pocket vetoed... because it was never presented to a President for his signature... preventing any possibility of a veto override.

As much as I loathe this President... I do have to give him credit for standing up against the WPA... it’s a shame he’s not competent enough to recognize the reality of the WPA and state it... rather than playing these games.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong.

It passed the House on July 18, 1973.It passed the Senate on July 20, 1973.President Nixon vetoed it on October 24, 1973.His veto was overridden by the Senate on November 7, 1973. Thus immediately the bill became law, without the need for Nixon's signature.And this [archives.gov] is a high resolution scan of the final bill.

Obama isn't trying to 'stand against' the WPA, he's trying to say it doesn't apply to him. He supported it in the past, and if he said it didn't apply, he would look like a hypocrite.

The constitution says that only congress may declare war, but from the beginning, the US has engaged in conflicts without declaring war [wikipedia.org]. In fact, congress has only declared war five times. The original words in the constitution draft were that only congress could "make war," but it was changed to say only congress could "declare war," in recognition of the fact that sometimes the president should be allowed to fight without declaring war.

No one knows where the line between what the president can do and what congress must authorize exists, though. The WPA is nothing more than congress's opinion, because they don't have the right to restrict the president further than the constitution.

Now, if congress really cared, they could bring the matter up to the Supreme Court, and get an injunction prohibiting the president from further action in Libya. But they haven't, which is how you know their words are nothing more than an attempt to win cheap political points.

He's not going to Congress because the majority of Congress won't support it. It seems also that the majority of Congress won't come out and oppose it, as they know that it basically condemns the Libyan rebels to stalemate at best and death at worst; they're generally more upset that Obama is skipping past them. Obama's position is little different from every president since Nixon vetoed the measure, though they have provided reports "consistent with" as opposed to "as required by" the War Powers Resoluti

Pres. Bush never lied to Congress, at least about either Afghanistan or Iraq. I'm not saying whether or not I think either war was justified and a good idea, but at some point we need to stop repeating the mantra about Pres. Bush lying to get support to start the Iraq War - it simply is not true. He said nothing more than what every major intelligence agency around the world had been saying for over a decade - that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and was actively developing more. We didn't find any WMDs in Iraq but

i heard that Bush's people were harassing journalists, specifically Greg Jackson, a research assistant for Ron Suskind, who was writing Way of the World, a bit if an expose about the pre-Iraq war intelligence.

they, according to suskind, detained Jackson, took his notes, and confiscated some of his stuff.

i voted for Obama so that kind of thing would stop.

and so the war would stop. and so that the assault on civil liberties would stop.

im a 100% fucking idiot. i am voting for uhm... oh wait, we don't have write-in ballots here, and we barely have 3rd parties allowed on the ballot.

At this point, it is rather questionable whether NATO activities in Libya are still within the boundaries of the original UN mandate. Both Russia and China are saying that what's going on is not what they had in mind when they let the resolution pass. Originally, any "necessary force" must be used only to ensure the safety of civilians, and not to help one side of the civil war win; the moment NATO started supporting rebel advance from the air and handing out weapons to them, any pretense of that has been d

Maybe you were unaware that "the previous guy" disagreed on this point, and took a very careful view of complying with the "War Powers Resolution". In other words, unlike Obama, Dubya got congressional approval for his war(s). Whatever vague point you were trying to make, your post is factually misleading.

In other words, unlike Obama, Dubya got congressional approval for his war(s).

Dubya fed us a huge pile of lies for his favorite war, and completely dropped the ball on his less favorite one.

Did Bush seek and get Congressional approval for both wars, or did he not? You're trying to deflect the issue with a "yeah, but...". Bush sought approval, and didn't move until he had it. Obama claims that he doesn't even need it. That's the issue here. You can hate Dubya's guts, but if you're honest, you have to admit that Bush complied with the WPA, and Obama is flaunting it. In other words, Barack Obama is governing in a manner that both he and his supporters condemned Bush for.

The Constitution at no point defines what constitutes declaring war. It is a perfectly reasonable argument that the Congressional act authorizing the use of force against Saddam was legally a declaration of war. It is certainly a stronger argument than the one that the Obama Administration is trying to use here.
I have noticed that no one has mentioned another element of Obama's argument: that he does not need Congressional authorization in Libya because he has UN authorization.

They gave Bush these powers with Card Blanche, and he put us into two war fronts, one of which he should be prosecuted for. (Iraq) Obama uses it for legitimate purposes and they flip flop like a fish out of water.

Last I checked, Bush got approval for his little wars. He lied a lot to get it, but he still took the effort.

In the mean time, I hope Obama can hold the course. This a break for the free world and a chance for Democracy to break out in the Middle East.

Are you serious? You do understand that rebels are violently racist (look up all the stories about lynchings and expulsions of Black Libyans from regions controlled by the rebellion), and a good chunk of them are Islamist fundamentals. What more, al-Qaeda has already signed up to fight on their side, and some of the people now being supplied by weapons and provided air support by NATO in Libya are th [telegraph.co.uk]